In the cover image of Gathering of Pearls, the main character Sookan is wearing a black suit, and she is gathering pearls that have fallen on the floor. Her hair looks a little untidy, and she is sitting on the wood floor. When I look at this picture, I can feel very strong emotions such as sadness, hopeless, desire. She went to America alone and had lots of experiences, and those situations make her emotions getting stronger. For example, she had both good and bad encounters with her American friends, and her mother died at the end of the book. Emotions are one of the most important parts of everyone's life. Sookan's life is changed by the emotions inside of her like the pearls on the floor around her. Every pearl represents a kind of emotion, and some emotions are complicated such as sadness and happiness, eagerness and hopelessness; Sookan must figure out how to balance her conflicting emotions to do what is right for herself in her future.
Emotions have changed Sookan's life a lot. The first emotion is eagerness, when she wants to come to America. Her family members do not want her to go to America, because they think that she is too young to come. When she comes to America, I can feel her fear: “I knew no one in America, and my command of English was poor ” (Choi 1). From this situation, we can see that she is worrying about her situation like a little helpless girl, so she decides that she will become a stronger person, and she will try to adapt to American culture. As a lonely college girl, she learns how to be a more independent person by facing her fear.
She also works very hard on her studying : "She suggested music appreciation and a studio art class. But I signed up for world literature, world religious, Greek and Roman culture, and early European history " (Choi 18). As we can see,she gets so many extremely difficult classes, because she wants to go up to a better level of her American education life. She over works, when she comes back toher dorm: " At the end of the hall was the showe room, the only room in the building where the lights were kept on all night. There, at the end of the long row of showers, were five sparkling clean bathtubs. I headed to the tub in the corner and spread out my blanket, placed my pillow at the back, and laid my books on the floor" (Choi 73). From this information, we can see she starts to learn and work extremely hard, and she is trying to not just survival and thrive. Thus, Sookan learns how to be more independent from those experiences and she is also achieving her goals.
In addition, emotions influence Sookan's feeling and decisions. For example,when she is angry with Ellen, she says bad words to her and she leaves Ellen alone, because she doesn't know what she should do: " I had lost my temper and I had hurt Ellen. I didn't go back downstairs until I was sure Ellen would be asleep, and the next morning I tiptoed out of the room before she woke up" (Choi 118). From this sentence we can know, she sometimes makes bad decisions because of her feeling. Another example is when Father Lee comes and tells her mother's death: " I didn't speak, and suddenly, I didn't even have the energy to cry. I just sat, thankful he was there and wishing he would never stop talking. I think he knew, for he continued" (Choi 150). This paragraph is about her reaction when she hears the bad news; she doesn't even have a power to cry, because her heart fills with sadness and hopeless. On the other hand, emotions also bring her some good feelings. For instance she says about Sister Reed, " I would always remember her, and I hoped that we someday, I would be able to make a young girl feel as proud and happy as she made me" (Choi 94). As we can see, when they have a little party, Sookan is full with happiness and passion. I can feel how happy she is, and I am sure that she is too happy to speak it out. Thus, emotion is such a important thing in her life, and they can make her to feel better or worse sometimes, so she has to learn how to control emotions to make the best decisions.
Sometimes Sookan needs to balance her emotions to keep calm. In this book, we can always see complicated emotions, for example "Flustered, I faltered, then hurriedly responded,'Yes, well, I had a good time, too. Good night.' I pulled my hand from his, and ran inside" (Choi 126). From what she says, we can see that she has a really happy and exciting emotion; however when her friends tell her that she drank alcohol, she has a much different reaction. " 'You mean I went out on a date and drank alcohol? That sounds so wild!' I said.'Actually, though, there was nothing wild about it. But if my sister ever found out, she would really think I was losing my values' " (Choi 127). I can feel a strong guilt and remorse; as we can see, she has conflicting emotions on the same thing. In my opinion, she is afraid of her sister, so she had those conflicting emotions; however, her mother teaches her how to balance them: "If you ever feel hurt or tired or empty, I hope that you will remember what I have always told you about taking that suffering, and creating a pearl around the pain. Don't let the hurt poison you" (Choi 145). This is what her mother tells her to balance the emotion just like what she is doing in the cover image. In the image, she is gathering pearls which are conflictive emotions, and this is how she balances them. Thus, Sookan finally understands her mother's words, and she balances all emotions successfully.
In the end of the novel, she finally becomes alone in America without any family members, and her mother dies. For most people like her age, they cannot take this pain; however, Sookan takes it by herself. I believe that she will find out what her mother wants she to find out what kind of person she wants to be, and she will have a brighter future with all her friends and her mother's wishes. "Tough times are the times when one gathers one's pearls," (Choi 163), just like Sookan works hard to build a peaceful life like a pearl.
Citation:
No comments:
Post a Comment